Braided Friendship Bracelet

I had the activity Day Girls over for a day camp at my house.  I'm not good with taking pictures of these activities.  I started off the day by having the girls choose 7 colors of embroider floss.  Some chose 2 colors and had multiple strands with their favorite being 4 strands and the alternate color 3 strands.  I cut the floss into 18" strands.  There was excess but it allowed for a mistake to be made in the beginning and to tie it off an inch or two in.  My thought was if we they were waiting for someone to be done before we moved on, they could work on it.  If we were doing a lesson, they could work on it and I wouldn't mind because they could listen and have their hands busy. (The last paragraph has more instructions.)

We had a lesson on the sacrament and the symbolism of the ingredients.  The girls made bread for sacrament meeting.  We had a lesson on the Holy Ghost and recognizing the Spirit.  We decorated cakes.  We played water games.  We made shaving cream background thank you cards.  We had ice cream sundaes where they could choose as many toppings as they had of memorized Articles of Faith.  Everyone was granted 3 because newer girls hadn't memorized any.

The friend ship bracelet is so EASY to make!  I had a lot of cake boxes from making cakes for the cake decorating.  I used a bowl as my stencil and traced onto two sides of the cake box.  Every cake mix gave me two discs for the friendship bracelet.

I then poked a hole in the center of each circle.  You could use a nail but I used an eyelet setter/hole puncher (remember when it was popular to have metal on your cards?).  Cut 8 cuts around the circle.  I just cut at 12, 3, 6 & 9.  Then I made 4 more additional cuts between those.  These cuts are 1/2" to 3/4". No need for precision on spacing between, close is good enough. 

Once the colors are chosen you will have 7 strands of 18" for an 8-11 year old (adults are about 25").  Tie the strands into one knot.  Put the knot into the center of the circle and thread one strand into each slit that was cut.  You will have one notch without any floss.

Holding the disc so the open slot is on the bottom, count up 3 floss on the right and remove it.  This gives you one opening, 2 floss, another opening.  The floss you removed will no go into the open slot on the bottom.  Rotate the disc so the new open slot is at the bottom and repeat by counting 3 floss up on the right, remove, bring to open slot.  Repeat until you get the desired length. Tie off, just as you started with the single knot.

The braid itself will automatically move down through the opening in the center.  Initially you may need to hold the thread in the center so it doesn't pull out when you are moving floss from one notch to another.  This really depends on the size of your hole and the knot itself.  Ideally the knot will catch and prevent it from popping out but my trial one I tied super tight making it small.